Religious Education

As many as 20,000 Catholic educators, priests, sisters and lay leaders are expected to attend the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress next weekend--the largest yearly event of its kind in Catholicism. The three-day congress starting Friday at the Anaheim Convention Center registered 20,000 participants from around the country each of the last two years. Another 10,000 Catholic students are expected to attend the annual Youth Day in the center's arena Thursday.

On a recent Sunday in a classroom at the Sikh temple in Pacoima, nine young students sat scattered across four pews, an incongruous reminder of a time the building was used by a church. As the teacher, Pami Kaur, read aloud a series of words in Punjabi, the mainly 7- to 9-year-old students slowly repeated them, sounding each one out before writing it down. Some balanced notebooks on their laps as others knelt, using the pews as desks. " Kireh , I said, kireh ," said Kaur, repeating a word that means "ant," as she looked over one little girl's notebook.

Saying that traffic safety would be jeopardized, the City Council has rejected a Christian education group's request to put a trailer on Featherhill Drive. The City Council voted unanimously at its March 28 meeting to reject the request. "This is definitely not a religious issue," Councilman Bob Bell said. "It's a safety issue and property rights issue."

Fans are fed up Re "Ballpark violence," Editorial, April 7 The Times encourages fans not to tolerate rowdiness at Dodger Stadium. As a Dodgers fan who has attended many games, I find that the bad behavior usually stems from individuals who have consumed a few too many beers. At the very least they interfere with my enjoyment of the game. The Times says it is not suggesting that the stadium go dry. I am. There are plenty of soft drinks and water available. I am an 84-year-old man, and I am not about to confront several drunk individuals who are rowdy.

Along with the usual workshops on "Biblical Child Training" and "Defending the Christian Faith Against Evolutionary Humanism," the annual Christian Home Educators Convention this weekend will offer help to seemingly out-of-place visitors--secular learners. Home schooling, once the province of parents opposed to scholastic restrictions or to teaching evolution, increasingly is drawing parents who simply believe traditional schools are failing their children.

Though Americans grow up glued to the television screen, scholars in religious education generally have ignored how much TV's enormous influence hampers efforts to teach religious subjects to children or adults at churches, synagogues and religious schools, says an expert in the field. "We have pretended that it's peripheral to our concerns because we are interested in the verbal and the literary"--lectures and books--said Charles F.

"Extremist" underground Islamic schools are drawing more than 300,000 young students across Yemen, the country's prime minister said. Prime Minister Abdul-Kadir Ba Jamal warned that the religious education promoting the ideas of Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam, "will bring a disaster to Yemen and this generation." He promised to eliminate the schools, which he estimated numbered about 4,000 and drew about 330,000 students. "We are not against the religious education ...

Police using batons, dogs and water cannons broke up a protest by thousands of Islamists marching through Turkey's capital, Ankara, to challenge Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz's effort to curtail religious education. Witnesses said police repeatedly charged demonstrators outside the Education Ministry after hours of protests. The Anatolian news agency said 11 people were hospitalized. Estimates of the crowd size ranged from 6,000 to 15,000.

About 20,000 people from six countries are expected to attend an annual three-day religious education congress next month at the Anaheim Convention Center. "Imaging Love: Empowering Lives" is the largest catechetical event to be held each year in the world, said congress coordinator Adrian Whitaker. Hundreds of priests and bishops will welcome delegates from the United States, Canada, Poland, Japan, Australia and Jamaica at this year's gathering, which begins Feb. 20.

Although Americans grow up glued to the television screen, scholars in religious education generally have ignored how much TV's enormous influence hampers efforts to teach religious subjects at churches, synagogues and religious schools, said an expert in the field. "We have pretended that it's peripheral to our concerns because we are interested in the verbal and the literary"--lectures and books--said Charles F.

Los Angeles City Council members are known for keeping a finger on the pulse of constituents, sorting out who are political friends and who are not. Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar may have taken that practice into new territory by assigning his City Hall staff to prepare lists that graded civic leaders numerically on their level of support for him, according to three former Huizar employees. Those lists, drafted during his first five years as a councilman, ranked dozens of people on their support for Huizar and influence in the 14th City Council district.

The University of California did not violate students' freedom of expression and religion when it rejected some classes at a Riverside-area Christian school from counting toward UC admission, a Los Angeles federal judge has ruled.

The major seminary and flagship institution of Conservative Judaism said in New York that it would start accepting openly gay and lesbian students, after scholars who interpret Jewish law for the movement voted to allow it. Arnold Eisen, the incoming chancellor for the Jewish Theological Seminary, said the decision was made after extensive discussion with faculty and students, a survey on views of the issue within the movement and a meeting of the school's trustees.

Shortly before Easter, New Line Cinema executives sat down in a Los Angeles screening room for a class they nicknamed "Christianity 101." The movie studio was preparing for the holiday release of "The Nativity Story," based on the biblical account of Jesus' birth.

Students at the University of South Carolina are justifiably proud of the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center, one of the largest such facilities on a college campus, which offers activities as varied as rock climbing on a 52-foot indoor wall and sand volleyball. The 192,000-square-foot center, completed two years ago and named for the late South Carolina senator, is already improving its amenities, thanks to $5 million earmarked in this year's federal education budget.

All foreign students studying at Islamic schools in Pakistan will be ordered to leave the country, President Pervez Musharraf said Friday. About 1,400 foreign students are enrolled in madrasas, or Islamic seminaries, some of which have been linked to militant groups. The foreign students "have to be removed from the country," Musharraf said at a news conference. "Even those having dual nationality. No one in the madrasas will be allowed to spread extremism and hatred in the society."

Czechoslovakia's first new resident bishop in 15 years was consecrated by Pope John Paul II's envoy for Eastern Europe in a ceremony in Trnava in the republic of Slovakia. About 15,000 people gathered at the town's main church as the Vatican envoy, Archbishop Francesco Colasuonno, consecrated Jan Sokol, 54, as bishop and apostolic administrator of the Trnava archdiocese.

The school board unanimously refused Monday night to endorse a Christian education program which takes students from classes 40 minutes a week for instruction in a "Chapel on Wheels." Tustin Unified School District Trustee Jane Bauer said parents would be "abrogating their responsibility" by asking the school to participate in the program.

"Extremist" underground Islamic schools are drawing more than 300,000 young students across Yemen, the country's prime minister said. Prime Minister Abdul-Kadir Ba Jamal warned that the religious education promoting the ideas of Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam, "will bring a disaster to Yemen and this generation." He promised to eliminate the schools, which he estimated numbered about 4,000 and drew about 330,000 students. "We are not against the religious education ...

January 12, 2005 | Stephen Prothero, Stephen Prothero teaches at Boston University and is author of "American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003).

The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same. Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden.